Team Dreams 2k19: Memphis Grizzlies
I have amnesia about every time someone has ever told me what to do if I ever encounter a bear in the wild. Was it to make myself big? I hope not — it’s famously hard, for me, as a woman, to take up space, especially in like the Bear World. Was it to do nothing? This is famously something I’m quite good at. So yes, amnesia.
Well, I saw a bear a few weeks ago about an hour and a half north of New York City. The bear was cute, a cub or maybe a teen bear. It crossed the highway and I didn’t know if it was a Grizzly or if it was a tween or a chunky baby. I hope it found its mom.
Anyway, I saw the Grizzlies play the Nets at Barclays Center on March 5th of 2014. I was a freshman in college back home for spring break. I grew up a few blocks from Barclays before it was Barclays and made my maiden voyage to Barclays because I went to a Big Ten School and had for maybe the first time in my life Male Friends who Liked Sports. I also really think the Nets uniforms are nice and classic.
It is with deep deep regret that I admit that earlier that day I had been peer pressured into eating in Little Italy aka the worst place to possibly eat Italian food after Sbarro. We ate lukewarm Penne Alla Vodka in some emptyish restaurant with no charm. Before my parents disown me for failing them and all New Yorkers: It’s been really nice to have them raise me into large young adult womanhood.
So during about the second quarter of the Nets vs. Grizzlies smackdown (I could not for one million dollars tell you who was winning) up in the nosebleeds, my friend, we’ll call her Ursula (a very casual name), does not look so good.
My friend Des (all my friends’ names are very casual) and I take her out of the seats and into the endless food court of Barclays, the biggest place in America. She can barely walk. We are all sober. Ursula looks wasted. And we’re kind of all laughing but also kind of stressed and just trying to make sure she doesn’t chunder all over the place.
People keep asking us if she needs help and we’re sort of like yes but also sort of like SHE’S NOT DRUNK NO ONE IS DRUNK WE ARE JUST 18 AND ATE SHADY TOURIST TRAP PENNE ALLA VODKA LIKE 3 HOURS AGO.
I end up calling my dad. My father drives his car through Brooklyn with the frequency of a suburban soccer mom living in Outer Whitelandia. He picks us up at Barclays and kindly drives us deep into Queens to drop Ursula at her home. She’s at puke’s edge the whole time and Des is hysterically laughing the whole time and I’m telling my dad that no one is drunk but I confess that we ate in Little Italy and that’s why Ursula probably has food poisoning and is acting drunk.
We are two blocks from her house when she pukes the slimy red pasta all over the interior of my dad’s red RAV-4. I still have no idea what to do when I see a bear OR whether the Grizzlies will make it to the playoffs.
